Lyle Denniston had this post at Scotusblog yesterday which begins:
Continuing to make sure that female employees and students have access to birth control, but that religious non-profit organizations where those women work or study do not have to provide it, the Supreme Court took action Monday on a case that is developing for next Term.
In a two-page order, the Court turned aside requests by Roman Catholic colleges, charities, and other non-profits in Pennsylvania to keep on hold a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, rejecting those groups’ challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., had temporarily put that ruling on hold last April until further legal papers were filed, but had taken no further action since.
The order further describes how the Third Circuit ruling applies while the cert petition remains pending.
The Third Circuit case is Geneva College v. Secretary, decided in February; my coverage of the circuit decision is here.
Seems to me the headline here is not that a stay was denied — that’s run of the mill. Almost no court of appeals decisions are stayed pending cert. What is notable is that a 5-Justice majority vacated the stay of the Third Circuit’s decision which had been entered by Justice Alito, as Circuit Justice, back in April. The Court’s denial of stay pending disposition of Geneva College’s cert petition, however, is conditioned on extension of the same accommodation that the Court required in the Wheaton College case last year.